


A New Beginning

by Livinginfictions



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game), Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I got nostalgic and lost my mind, WTF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7492326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livinginfictions/pseuds/Livinginfictions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I legit don't know. I've spent the last week playing Stardew Valley almost nonstop, and this was the only way I could think to express the feeling it gives me. Somehow I managed to make it angsty and cute. Totally AU, nothing is accurate, except hopefully the characters. I'm basically just making Dean play out my daydreams.<br/>Might add some Destiel in there later on, because I am oh so weak, but I'm not sure yet.<br/>Let me know what you think!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Angsty Kid Stuff

There was only so much he could take.

Cursing to himself, Dean slammed the door on his Impala and skidded out of the neighborhood. Dad was out ‘taking care of the problem’, and Dean wouldn’t stay there to wait for more yelling when he got back.

Dean had hesitated, and it almost cost them a hunt. His screw up could have ruined the whole thing. He deserved his dad’s anger, and he deserved to stay in the cockroach infested hellhole where they’d set up camp until John finished cleaning up his mess. But, as always, Dean was selfish.

He’d thrown his duffel into the back and driven off without even leaving a note. Only now he was on the road, eating up the asphalt of the interstate, and he had no idea what he’d been planning to do. Run away? What was he, five? Typical, Dean couldn’t even do angsty kid stuff right. He might as well have tied a pb&j into a handkerchief on a stick and walked around the block a few times.

And yet...he was still going. It’d been at least half an hour now, he was pretty far away from town. He’d passed the time with Creedence Clearwater Revival blaring from the dash and it was all a bit of a blur. His foot still weighed heavy on the gas, and Dean couldn’t convince himself to turn around. Instead, life since Sam had left for college swam in front of his eyes.

First there had been the anger. So much anger. They'd gone after the easy to find, hard to kill targets and cleaned out half of the Midwest in a month. John had barely looked at Dean, except to hand him a machete and to spar with him  _ every night _ . Covered in blood, gashes, and bruises, the two of them fought until Dean hit the ground and didn't get back up. After almost three months of the never-ending pain, the sparring stopped and the drinking started.

John had always been loose with alcohol, but never on a hunt. His golden rules were shredded the moment Sam walked out, and he started hunting bars instead of monsters. At first Dean had been grateful for the break, but he soon found that a father that was often drunk was much different than a father that was always drunk. John rarely came back from the bar before noon the next day, having found other ways to amuse himself around town. Dean had to start hiding part of the money he earned at pool just so they could keep gas in the car. Hunts were a pipedream that Dean nearly begged for as he dragged his dad onto a soggy mattress or couch day after day.

That had lasted a while too. Things had only evened out about a month ago, when John somehow found a balance between the constant drinking and the constant hunting. The mixture of the two left Dean with both physical and mental wounds each night. John was very talkative as a drunk, and had no qualms about expressing his disappointment in Dean. All the little comments John had been making for years about Dean, how he wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t strong enough, didn’t take care of Sam enough.

 

It was his favorite topic. It was Dean’s fault that Sam didn’t like hunting, Dean’s fault that Sam had left. He should have stopped him and convinced him to stay. As if he hadn’t tried.

 

About the only thing Dean was nearly good enough at was shooting a gun, and even then he only managed to avoid insult. His talents were never quite deserving of praise. But that was nothing new.

 

On the other hand, when he wasn't talking he was fighting. Dean, other drunks, anyone he could get his hands on. They'd had to leave multiple hunts because of the calls the police kept getting about John's bar brawls. The only word Dean could think of to describe how he felt when he had to apologize to whoever John had hit, was embarrassed. Often they were good people that John had mistakenly deemed a threat and attacked. Once it was even a college student, and Dean didn’t want to think about what could mean.

At the end of the memories, Dean's foot was pressing down even harder. He couldn't go back. No, he  _ wouldn't _ go back. It was selfish, but Dean was used to that by now. 

 

He switched over to driving on the highway, surprised he hadn’t been pulled over yet. He hadn’t gone below 85 since leaving whatever that town was called. He filled up with cash and then kept going, letting his music drown out the rest of his frustrating and painful memories.

 

As the sun rose on his left, Dean finally pulled off the road into a crop of trees and parked. He slept in the backseat, using his jacket as a shield against the nippy spring weather.


	2. You've Got to be Kidding Me

His phone was ringing when he woke up. Dean was so, so screwed. Waiting until the ringing stopped, he listened to the voicemail.

“Dean Winchester, you have no idea how much trouble you are in. Stay put until I get to you or I swear to God you will wish you were in hell.”

Of course his dad had tracked his phone. They always knew how to find each other in case something went wrong. Dean was such an idiot. Stretching painfully, he climbed back to the front seat and rubbed his eyes. He had plenty of time until John arrived, but the dread was already starting to make him shake. John’s temper was...unbelievable. After the stunt he pulled on the hunt, Dean had already been on thin ice. 

Before Dean knew what he was doing, his cell was on the ground outside and he was already pulling back onto the interstate. What the hell was wrong with him? He was only making things worse for himself. But he kept going, pressing hard on the gas like the night before. With Sam gone, Dean had nothing left to lose, so why not? Besides, he couldn’t just sit there waiting for John to come find him, the anxiety would probably kill him before his dad could.

It took another hundred miles before he stopped looking in the rearview mirror every ten seconds, waiting for John’s truck to appear behind him. Finally, he could let up on the gas and slide into a speed just over the limit. There weren’t a lot of places to get food along this stretch of road, but Dean didn’t have the nerve to stop and eat. He turned off the first exit that appeared and just kept going, always heading south.

Dean pulled out all the stops. He switched licenses, cut to the west every once in awhile just so he wasn’t heading in a straight line. Every meal, every gas stop, was paid in cash. No one got even an alias out of him. He’d always been able to hunt Sam down as a teenager, but no one had ever had to look for Dean before, and it turned out he was very good at not being found.

He stopped when it felt right. It didn’t feel right until he’d taken three turns on dirt roads and followed a nearly invisible path past a disused field. The place that Dean’s gut had decided to settle in, was an old farmhouse. A dirty, musty cabin with a damaged ceiling that could barely provide shelter from a slight drizzle.

As Dean dragged himself out of the car, he couldn’t help muttering to himself, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” His gut was obviously dysfunctional from all the gas station tuna sandwiches. But it was late, and there was a dirty mattress in the bedroom that probably didn’t have too many bugs in it. It wasn’t much worse than the houses he was used to squatting in.


	3. Honest Work

Dean had been wrong. The house could  _ not _ offer shelter from a slight drizzle, as he found out after waking in the night to soaked bedding and a damp leather jacket. Sleeping in the living room on an awful smelling couch with nothing to cover himself left Dean with shivers and barely there dreams until dawn warmed the world up a bit.

As much as Dean wanted to just find the nearest hotel to hole up in, his gut was rarely wrong about things like this. He would just have to do some minor repairs to make it more comfortable.

Thoughts buzzed around his ears, asking questions Dean would eventually need to answer, but for now he shoved them aside and pulled the trunk open.

Well, he had a hammer, once he untaped the blade from one end. That was it. But farmers did their own repairs all the time, right? There had to be some nails or other tools around the property that whoever used to live in the house had forgotten, like they’d forgotten the furniture, and bedding, and everything else apparently. Dean spent the next ten minutes digging through debris and grass that went above his waist, until he finally came up with a rusty tin can full of tetanus covered nails.

Wandering around for something to cover the leak, Dean found the barn. Or, what was left of it. It appeared to have been levelled: by time or storm, he didn’t know. There were plenty of boards though, and he dug through them until he found a couple that weren’t completely rotten.

Standing precariously on an old wooden chair, Dean held the boards against the hole in the ceiling and banged nails into them, one after another. He hummed some Metallica as he worked, because for once there was no one around to make him stop.

It was shoddy work, but who could blame him? A life of hunting monsters didn’t exactly leave Dean much room for learning carpentry. Anyway, it got the job done.

Working with his hands was always something Dean enjoyed. Whether it was slicing and dicing, maintenance on his car, or even this kind of manual labor, it felt good to do some honest work. Eager to keep going, for reasons Dean didn’t bother to understand, he searched the barn area for more useful items.

All of its contents still seemed to be there. A dented wheelbarrow buried under planks made it easier to cart all the things Dean dug out back to the car. Organizing them on the dirt, Dean took a look at his haul.

There were basic tools, like a handsaw and ax and another hammer. But mixed in were things he couldn’t understand the use of, like the head of a brush, but with metal bristles, and something that looked like what the grim reaper carried. A scythe, wasn’t it? What he saw as the most valuable were the ratty, disintegrating saddle blankets. When he shook them out he nearly choked on the smell, but if he piled them up on the crappy mattress until it could be replaced, he’d sleep a lot more comfortably.

There was twine too, and Dean strung up a thick line of it between two trees, draping all of his wet clothes and blankets over it. He even dragged the mattress from the bedroom and leaned it up against the same tree. It was cold, but he hoped the breeze and sun would dry them before dark.

Next he took the scythe and sort of swung it at the overgrown grass in front of the house, breaking and cutting it down so he could get to his car without stickers attaching themselves to every inch of his pants. It took a while to get used to the motion, but soon he was swiping down the waves and tying big bundles together with twine until he figured out what to do with them. From the bottom of the porch steps across a section of the yard to the area Dean had parked ran a makeshift path of round flat stones that were almost completely hidden by the height of the weeds that surrounded them. With the grass down to a more manageable level it actually looked kind of nice.

Some of the weeds he cut were thick, tough, and painful to the touch, so he kicked them into a heap next to the car. Maybe he could use them for kindling in the fireplace.

He spent the entire day going on like that, almost forgetting to eat the donut that he’d saved from the day before, but chugging his water bottle. The day was chilly and windy, but by the time Dean folded up the old blankets onto the now dry bed in the newly weatherproofed bedroom, he was sweating. It had been a long time since he’d felt so productive without killing something, but he was as tired as if he’d been fighting, only now the ache in his body was nearly pleasant. It was exercise pain, not injury pain, and that made all the difference.


	4. Untraceable

Dean slept late. Even though he’d gone to bed around the time the sun set, having no way to see after dark, he couldn’t properly wake up. Each time his eyes blinked open, his body felt too heavy to move, and he fell asleep again. Once he finally managed to sit up, the soreness in his shoulders forced him to dig in his duffel for painkillers before anything else.

Without his phone, he had to check the clock on the dashboard of the Impala to find out the time. He’d slept nearly 15 hours. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d managed 8, let alone 15.

That meant he also hadn’t eaten real food in nearly two days. He was starving. There had to be a town nearby with something decent to eat, so Dean headed out to find it. Only fifteen minutes away, he found the most apple pie little town he’d ever seen. There was just one of everything. One diner, one gas station-cum-mechanic, one grocer. It was the kind of place where everybody knows everybody else’s secrets.

Seeing this, Dean was flabbergasted when not a single person looked at him twice. Wouldn’t someone new be the talk of the town? A peek into the window of the gas station explained the reluctance everyone had to even walk near him. He’d been driving for three days, digging in dirt and dust for one, and at this point the only recognizable features about him were his eyes. The rest was covered in muck.

A wary cashier at the gas station pointed him toward a truck stop shower area and Dean did his best to clean up. His jacket would need properly wiped off, so Dean stuffed it into his duffel with the dirty clothes he’d changed out of and went back out to the shop without it. Instantly, the cashier became almost neighbourly.

“Welcome to Goldcrest, Arizona, sir. What can I do for you?” The young man was smiling brightly now, and Dean couldn’t help laughing a little at his change in attitude.

Picking out some dry foods he could stash in the car next to the counter, Dean responded, “Well, you could tell me where Goldcrest is. Never been this far south before, you know.”

His name tag said  _ Danny _ , and while he scanned Dean’s food he began to happily describe his town. “Well, we’re about half an hour away from Hannagan Meadow, which is about five hours from Phoenix. We’re out of the way mostly, but there’s still enough people that drive through to give our town some good business, especially in the summer. What brings you to Goldcrest anyway? That is, if you don’t mind my asking, sir.”

Dean shook his head, “You don’t have to call me sir, man. I’m Dean. And I’m uh, staying here for a while, kind of a vacation for me.” He couldn’t believe he’d given his real name. How stupid was he? If his dad had been there he would’ve gotten an elbow to the gut, but as it was he just tried to hide his discomfort by digging around in his bag of food as though he were doublechecking he’d grabbed everything.

“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, some of our other residents said they saw you coming down Valley Road, where Mr. Fletcher’s farm used to be. Were you a friend of his? I mean, I know it’s none of my business, only it’s been years since anybody lived there.” Word had traveled fast, but the Danny’s nervousness set off a whole other alarm in Dean’s head. The farm was still full of its previous owners’ stuff, and it didn’t sound like anyone else was willing to go near the land to get it. Was this about to become a hunt?

It was easy to fall into character, and Dean took this as an opportunity to keep suspicion to a minimum while he was there. “Family, actually. He was an uncle-” The look on Danny’s face made him switch gears. ”a great-uncle I mean. It’s become a family property, and I thought that it’d do me some good to try to fix it up a little. Have you see it recently?”

He was walking blind, and if the kid asked any more questions, Dean might get himself caught. He couldn’t have come up with a better character that quickly, and all of his fake ids were in the glovebox. 

Anyway, even if it was haunted, the broken little house was kind of a nice place, and Dean didn’t want to have to leave just because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Danny shook his head, “No, nobody really goes down there. Mr. Fletcher didn’t really like guests.”

Already Dean’s mind was racing, and he barely coughed out a “Thank you.” as he left the store. The house hadn’t looked particularly suspicious, but that didn’t really mean much. It was strange that he hadn’t been attacked yet though, after he’d spent so much time on the land. He could search for a grave when he got back, and burn bones just to be safe. Or maybe there was a graveyard the town shared?

A sign outside the town diner advertised an internet cafe, and Dean took full advantage of it. After eating the first decent meal he’d had in days, Dean looked up this Fletcher guy.

Winston Fletcher, it seemed, had been a farmer in the area for most of his life. About nine years ago he’d died of heart disease, and the land hadn’t been touched since. No family, and no one wanted to buy the land. It wasn’t a hunt after all, just an isolated farmer with too small a crop of land for anyone to bother with.

Except Dean. A little bit of internet magic and Dean had a copy of the deed and a new identity. Now he was Dean Fletcher, great-nephew of the farmer, and the new owner of his land. 

It was a perfect cover. He could stay as long as he liked and never get a visitor, as long as he kept up ‘Uncle Fletcher’s attitude toward the townspeople. Well, as long as he didn’t run out of money. He’d arrived with less than a hundred dollars in his wallet, and he’d had to fill up the Impala again. That, along with his meal, left a lot less in his pocket than he would have hoped. He considered playing a little pool, but if he wanted to stick around it was best not to make any enemies.

The extent of his research and work to blend in raised those questions again. He’d run away from John, ditched his phone and plates, made himself practically untraceable. Now he was acting like he’d decided to stay put for the foreseeable future. How far was he going to take this?

Dean popped back into the store and bought a bottle of Jack before heading back to the farm. The more he drank, the less the questions bothered him, so he kept drinking. At least he wouldn’t get rained on tonight.


	5. Sometimes Denial is the Best Option

The world woke him up by stabbing him in the eyes and dropping a hammer on his head.

Groaning in pain at the sunlight streaming through yet another hole, in the wall this time, Dean stumbled out of the house and tried to get to the trees that surrounded the yard to empty his bladder. How could the sun be so bright?

He was halfway there when he fell. Icy water enveloped him and Dean had never been more awake. He splashed and floundered over to the edge of the creek, dragging himself up onto the grass. Of course there was a creek. Just great. But then, he deserved it.

After dealing with John being so drunk, how could Dean be so stupid as to get drunk himself? This area wasn’t exactly the safest place to be running around with only half his senses. It was a farm, and with Dean’s luck he’d step on a half-buried tractor blade and bleed out before he could get to town.

As self-punishment, Dean decided he would have to work on the house for the day, no matter how crappy he felt. He’d been sneezing constantly from all the dust, so cleaning seemed like a good start. After changing into his last pair of jeans and a clean tank top, he found a broom and began to sweep.

He got a chance to really look at the layout of the house. It wasn’t as small as he’d thought, with a bedroom, office, and a good sized kitchen, the smallest room was the bathroom, but even that had a shower-tub combo. There was even a back room just for the washer and dryer, with a sink that was as deep as Dean’s elbows, and a back entrance. If the sink worked, it would be perfect for cleaning up after a messy day without mucking up the rest of the house.

Sweeping didn’t clean nearly as much as he wanted, so although he felt completely medieval, he started a fire in the hearth with some sticks and the weeds he’d stored up and boiled some water from the creek in a kettle. It took forever, but he eventually mopped the floors and had all the waterproof areas wiped down. Without all the dust and cobwebs, the house actually seemed livable.

Once everything was clean enough, he brought his newfound tools into the washroom and stacked them on the shelves. It wasn’t like he had a shed to put them in.

He wished he could do something about the water and the lack of lights. The pump out back would probably work if he could figure out how to turn it on, but to have the electricity turned on would mean paying a bill. A regular, monthly bill.

Would he be there a month? Was he seriously considering this? It was too much to think about, and Dean shoved it all down in favor of heading to town for a burger and a beer. He brought his duffel of dirty clothes along as well, in the unlikely case that Goldcrest had a laundromat.

The town was pretty busy, and Dean had to park a block away from the diner. As he was walking down the sidewalk a man carrying boxes that covered his face came out of the hardware store and smacked right into Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is short


	6. Denial is Sometimes the Best Option

Boxes went flying, and Dean ended up on his butt. Opposite him an older man was swearing profusely on the ground and piling the boxes onto each other again. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Dean said. He didn’t need to get on anyone’s bad side.

The man stopped what he was doing and looked Dean up and down. Dean looked back, ready if he had to be. The man was mostly bald, sturdily built, and only wore a Harley Davidson t-shirt and jeans despite the chill. Suddenly he laughed, “I’m sure you were. Would you mind grabbing some of those for me?” He gestured at a couple of the smaller boxes that had landed farther away from him, and Dean picked them up.

Not knowing what else to do, Dean followed the man once he’d restacked most of his boxes, allowing himself a space to see this time. They ended up at the garage and gas station combination, and the man led Dean into the back. They had set the boxes on the worktable before he looked at Dean again.

“My name is Jay Williams. Call me Jay. And you must be the man Danny’s been ranting about. I knew Winston you know.” Out of nowhere he gave Dean a hard, suspicious look and Dean tried to stay calm.

“Did you? I barely did myself.”

“He never mentioned any siblings, let alone…great nephews.” He continued before Dean could come up with a response, “Then again, Winston was a mean son of a bitch, and I’m sure anybody who might have been related would keep their distance.” As though that settled any worry about Dean’s identity, he changed subjects. “It is nice to know someone’s back on that farm though. It’s small, too small for any real tractors or industrial farming, but the land is good. You planning on doing anything special with it?” He threw the question over his shoulder as he began pulling parts out of the boxes refilling his cubbies of nails, screws, and nuts.

Relieved, Dean joined him, grabbing some of the bigger parts and taking them over to their proper spots on the shelves. “Mostly just fixing it up. Everything on it is in good condition, it’s just old. Would be nice to have it all clean and in working order. Even just working water would be good.” A shower would be amazing, or even just a way to wash his clothes.

“Is the pump broken?”

“Uh, I’m not sure. I don’t really know how to turn it on.” Dean winced when Jay laughed again. He probably sounded like an idiot.

But Jay disappeared through a door and returned with a small manual. “Here, I kept this for Winston, but that son of bitch refused to use it. Insisted he could figure it out on his own. Don’t know how it’ll work after all these years, but if you have a problem, just let me know.” Reading Dean’s mind, he added. “And if you haven’t gotten the electricity up or nothin’, it should have a generator of its own. So long as you’ve got the gas, you’ll get your water.”

“Thanks, but if I’ve got a manual, there’s not much I can’t fix. Anyway, is there anything else I can help you with?” The parts were all put away, but Dean was happy to stay in the garage. The smell of the cars was comforting, and here Dean was in his element.

Jay raised an eyebrow, “Not unless you want to change the oil on that truck.”

Shrugging, Dean headed over to the red ’87 Ford Ranger that was already jacked up. He could hear Jay laughing more when he got started, but ignored him and tucked a bucket under the drain plug. By the time he was finished, Jay had disappeared again. Dean finally found him at the front, talking to a customer over the counter.

He only got a chance to wave before the woman left, and Jay turned his attention to him. “How much do you know about cars? Just a tire and oil change, or something actually useful?”

“I’m mostly used to old cars and trucks, anything past the 80’s is a little new, but like I said before, I can fix pretty much anything with a manual and the right parts.”

Smiling, Jay pulled a twenty out of the register and handed it to Dean. “This is for the oil change. Now how would you feel about helping me out around here? My other mechanic just quit, that was her before. Something about moving out of this podunk town before she died of boredom. Interested in replacing her?”

Dean froze. Was he really going to…No. Screw it. He liked this, he  _ wanted  _ this, and even though something would inevitably mess it up, until that day he would enjoy it.

“Sounds good to me.”


End file.
